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The Rat Lines, the Holocaust in France, 1940-1944, and the Klaus Barbie Case, Part III | Serbianna Analysis
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ANALYSIS | Friday, May 6, 2016
The Rat Lines, the Holocaust in France, 1940-1944, and the Klaus Barbie Case, Part III September 3, 2012
By Carl Savich Introduction Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic was the organizer of the Vatican Rat Lines that allowed wanted Ustasha and Nazi war criminals to escape from Europe to South America. He helped not only suspected Croatian Ustasha war criminals escape prosecution
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for war crimes. He organized Klaus Barbie’s escape to Bolivia as an employee of the U.S.
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Army Counter‑Intelligence Corps (CIC) in 1951. Klaus Barbie was known as the “Butcher of
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Lyon”, or “boucher de Lyon”. As a Gestapo leader stationed in Lyons from 1942 to 1944, he was wanted for complicity in the murder of French Resistance leader Jean Moulin and 44
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Jewish children from Izieu. He was implicated in the deaths of 4,000 civilians in France
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during World War II. In 1987, he was tried and convicted in France of commi ing “crimes
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against humanity” and sentenced to life in prison.
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ANALYST ARCHIVES
Croatian Roman Catholic Ustasha priest Krunoslav Draganovic was a U.S. Army Counter‑
Aleksandra Rebic Andy Wilcoxson
Intelligence Corps (CIC) “asset” from 1947 until his 1962 “burn notice”.
Ari Rusila Boba Borojevic Bojan Ratkovic
Krunoslav Draganovic and the Rat Lines
Carl Savich D. Hunter Haynes Djordje
Boris Aleksić
Boutros Hussein Caleb Posner
Radulovic Edward S. Herman Georgy Gounev
Like the Poglavnik Ante Pavelic, Krunoslav Draganovic was born in Bosnia‑Hercegovina. He grew up in Travnik in central Bosnia. He studied theology in Sarajevo and at the Jesuit University in Rome where he majored in ethnology and Balkan Affairs. In the Nazi‑allied NDH regime, declassified U.S. intelligence documents show that he was a member of the Bureau of Colonization whose tasks included seizing Serbian‑owned property in Croatia and http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
Giovanni Giacalone
Michaletos
Ioannis Jaclyn Ryan James Bissett
James George Jatras Jonathan Levy Julia Gorin
Lee
Jay Walker Louis Dalmas M. 1/15
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Bosnia and allocating it to Croatian Roman Catholics. In short, the objectives were to
Bozinovich Marcus Papadopoulos Marinel
ethnically cleanse Croatia and Bosnia of Serbs. According to U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis by
Mandreš
Marko Lopusina Michael Averko Milivoje
Ivanišević Milo Yelesiyevich
Miroljub Jevtic
Richard Breitman, Norman J. W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe (Cambridge
Murad Makhmudov Natalie Koshkina Olga
University Press: 2005), Draganovic was also an army chaplain with the rank of lieutenant
Ravassi Ramazan Khalidov
colonel in the Ustasha Jasenovac concentration camp. His rationale for genocide and mass conversions of Orthodox Serbs was that during the O oman Turkish period Roman Catholic
Srdja Trifkovic
Stella L. Jatras Stephen Karganovic Viseslav
Simic Vladimir Todorović Vojin
Joksimovich
Croats had been converted to Orthodoxy. His 1935 doctoral dissertation Massenübertri e von Katholiken zur Orthodoxie im kroatischen Sprachgebiet zur Zeit der Türkenherrschaft (Mass conversions of Catholics to Orthodoxy in the Croatian‑speaking area during the Turkish rule) had been on the subject of mass conversions. He was the secretary to Sarajevo Roman Catholic Ustasha Archbishop Ivan Saric. He had a dispute with NDH leader Eugen
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Kvaternik, the head of the Ustaška nadzorna služba (UNS), the Internal Security Service, in August, 1943 and returned to Rome that year. Draganovic was himself wanted for war crimes by the Communist Yugoslav regime after the
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war but Italy rejected the extradition request. Specifically, Draganovic was implicated in the
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German and Croatian offensive in 1942 in the Kozara region of western Bosnia which
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targeted civilians. He is described in his U.S. intelligence dossier as an Ustasha and a wanted
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war criminal: “He is violently anti‑Tito and almost as violently anti‑Serb. An active member
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of ‘USTASI’ during WWII, he has been branded as a war criminal by Tito’s government and would face death if he ever returned to Yugoslavia.” Draganovic worked closely with the Vatican and U.S. intelligence. The U.S. Counter‑Intelligence Corps recruited him in 1947. During the post‑war period, he was the principal organizer of the Vatican escape routes, the Rat Lines, in conjunction with CIC and the Vatican. By 1962, he was no longer useful to U.S. intelligence and thus he was issued his “burn notice”. His January 23, 1962 U.S. Army CIC burn notice shows that he went by the aliases “Bloody Draganovic”, “The Professor”, and “Dr. Fabiano”. The operational Code Name was Dynamo. His birthdate was listed as October 30, 1903 in Brcko, Bosnia. His middle name was listed as Stefano. He was dropped by U.S. intelligence for “Security & Lack of Control”: “Not amenable to control; too knowledgeable of unit personnel and activity; demands outrageous monetary tribute and U.S. support of Croat organizations as partial payment for cooperation.” His last known address was given as Via Moricone, Rome, Italy. His occupation was listed as “Roman Catholic priest (Monsignor)”. He had been re‑recruited in 1959 after his dismissal from San Girolamo the previous year. Draganovic also played a role in the escape of Ante Pavelic to Argentina in 1947. Ante Pavelic’s whereabouts were also known by CIC. On April 15, 1945, Pavelic fled to Austria, and then to Rome. On September 12, 1947, the American Counter‑Intelligence Corps office in Rome reported that “Pavelic’s contacts are so high, and his present position is so compromising to the Vatican, that any extradition of Subject would deal a staggering blow to the Roman Catholic Church.” In an October 10, 1946 CIC memorandum, Draganovic’s activity with the Ustasha is detailed: “RE: Preliminary Background Material. 1. Pursuant to instructions from the Supervising Agent, this office and at the request of CIC, A‑HQ, the following information concerning Subject is on record in the files of this office. 2. Subject is presently located at Borgo Santo Spirito, No. 41, Rome, telephone ‑561076. 3. Subject is secretary of “Confraternita Croata”, Church of San Girolamo, Rome, and is considered the most important person in the fraternity. This organization is known to have issued false identity cards to war criminals of USTASCIA background enabling them to http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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escape Allied authorities. 4. This organization has a priest named Dominic MANDIC as a representative from the Vatican. 5. Subject was former secretary of Bishop SARIC. He keeps well informed as to Allied plans to apprehend USTASCIA activists. At one time Subject advised a Ljubo MILOS to escape from “Camp Fermo” as he was a wanted person. Subject is reported to be in communication with Ante PAVELIC former dictator of Croatia and leader of USTASCIA.” Based on a February 12, 1947 CIC report, his Ustasha connections were listed: “Shortly after the formation of the Independent State of Croatia under Ante PAVELIC in April 1941 DRAGANOVIC became one of the leading figures in the Bureau of Colonization. In the middle of 1943 however he became involved in a disagreement over the relative merits of the younger Eugen KVATERNIK, whom he called a ‘madman and a lunatic’, and he left Croatia and returned to ROME. “… According to a reliable informant it is believed that this departure of DRAGANOVIC from Croatia to Italy is a classic example of ‘kicking a man upstairs’ inasmuch as it is fairly well established that the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia expected the prelate, through his good connections in the Vatican, to be instrumental in working out the orientation of Croatia towards the West rather than the East. These same leaders, being occidental‑minded and knowing full well that Croatia’s militant Catholocism [sic] made her a ‘natural’ in such a deal, relied on DRAGANOVIC to assist them in their aims. He was eminently unsuccessful.”
Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic was reportedly a member of the Bureau of Colonization in the Ustasha NDH regime headed by Poglavnik Ante Pavelic. The CIC and the Rat Lines The U.S. government was aware of Klaus Barbie’s role in the Holocaust in France and that he was wanted as a suspected war criminal by the French government. Nevertheless, the U.S. recruited Barbie and employed him from 1947 to 1951 and allowed him to “escape” to Bolivia via the Vatican Rat Lines organized by Draganovic. Barbie was used by the U.S. in the Cold War as an intelligence asset. Klaus Barbie escaped prosecution for war crimes by means of the infamous Rat Line, the well‑funded escape route established with “official approval” by the US Army 430 Counter Intelligence Corps in Austria. It was created by Jim Milano and Paul Lyon in 1947 to assist
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US agents, informants, and sympathizers, “visitors”, to flee or “relocate” from the Soviet Sector in Vienna to the US Sector in Salzburg. The “shipments” were primarily Russian defectors and contacts who had been agents for the US in Soviet‑occupied regions. Milano explained the arrangement: “[A]s a reward for services, we se led them in different parts of the world.” Milano set up a three member group in Salzburg that would transport the “body” to a secure location, the “rat house” where processing would begin. They were sent to South America, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina. Milano set up a “laboratory” where his team forged and altered documentation such as passports and identity cards and papers. They had also bribed personnel in the Italian State Department. A US diplomat in Rome who was part of the International Refugee Office was also used as an insider. The finances were obtained from the intelligence fund. Every Rat Line operation was carefully planned and rehearsed “to prevent any embarrassment to the American government” according to Milano. Milano stated: “We would never let a Rat Line product out of our sight.” His three member team would complete the required “paperwork” and then dress the “body” in an “American uniform” which was driven in an “army jeep” to Bad Gastein where a train was taken to the Italian border. At the border, a “friendly” customs agent would allow the group to enter with a final destination of either Genoa or Naples, both port cities. From these ports, the “body” would be placed on a ship across the Atlantic. The Rat Line “contact” in Genoa was a Bosnian‑born, Croatian Ustasha handler and Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Stjepan Draganovic. Draganovic was a Bosnian Croat born in Brcko in northeastern Bosnia on October 30, 1903. He lived in the city of Travnik in central Bosnia. He studied theology at Sarajevo and was the secretary to notorious Sarajevo Ustasha Roman Catholic priest Ivan Saric, known as “The Hangman of the Serbs”, who was rabidly anti‑Serbian and anti‑Semitic. Saric had supported the mass conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Roman Catholicism and the mass murders of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. Along with Slovenian Roman Catholic priest Gregorij Rozman, Saric fled to Austria in 1945 to escape prosecution for war crimes, eventually finding refuge in Madrid, Spain under the Francisco Franco regime. Draganovic returned to Bosnia in 1967 as a “defector” to the Yugoslav Communist regime after residing in Italy and Austria after the war. The circumstances of his “defection” have never been explained. It is surmised that he was amnestied for his alleged war crimes in exchange for supporting the Communist Yugoslavian dictatorship regime of Josip Broz Tito. He is said to have been “entrapped” by the Yugoslav secret police, the UDBA. He was never tried for war crimes in Yugoslavia. He had been wanted for his role in the murder and ethnic cleansing of Serbian civilians in the 1942 Kozara operation in northern Bosnia. He died in Sarajevo on June 3, 1983, at the age of 79. He was regarded as the mastermind of the Rat Lines. James Milano referred to him as “the Good Father”. Brendan Murphy described how Draganovic was recruited by U.S. intelligence: “In the summer of 1947 officers of the 430th entered into negotiations with Father Krunoslav Dragonovic [sic], a Roman Catholic priest of Croatian origin based at a Rome seminary for young Croat candidates for the priesthood. … Dragonovic’s single virtue was that he offered the Americans a solution to their relocation problem.” Operations officer Paul E. Lyon wrote in a 1950 report that he had “developed several clandestine evacuation channels to the various South American countries for various types of European refugees.” James Milano explained that the U.S. recruited Draganovic for the operations: “Paul Lyon found Draganovic. He came to me and said, ‘Jeez, there’s a priest who works for this refugee organization and is ge ing hold of all these Red Cross documents.’ I never met Draganovic myself. Paul Lyon handled him. He was really well positioned for our needs. We called him http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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‘The Good Father’.” US intelligence deemed it irrelevant that he was a known fascist and ultra‑nationalist, was accused of war crimes and atrocities and genocide, and was implicated in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the NDH, a Croatian state that included Bosnia, that was allied to Nazi Germany. The Ustasha regime had been sponsored and supported by the Vatican. James Milano recalled that he was the one who hired him: “I made the final decision to employ him as an integral part of the Rat Line. He was only interested in honest Catholics. He wasn’t a spy.” He justified the recruitment of Draganovic on expediency grounds: “We were taught, and we honestly believed, that the end justified the means. I thought it was a very worthwhile thing to do. I was very proud of it.”
The former U.S. Army Counter‑Intelligence Corps (CIC) office building in Augsburg, Germany. A US CIC report in 1947 estimated that there were twenty known and wanted Ustasha war crimes suspects who were protected by the Vatican at San Girolamo. The report also noted a list of 115 Croats who had been able to escape from Italy to Argentina because of the Draganovic and Vatican Rat Line. These war crimes suspects, implicated in genocide against Jews, Serbs, and Roma, were “fed, clothed, housed, and otherwise provided for by the Institute of San Girolamo.” The CIC also was aware of Draganovic’s “sponsorship of the Ustasa cause” which stems from a deep‑rooted conviction that the ideas espoused by this arch‑nationalist organization, half logical, half lunatic, are basically sound concepts.” Draganovic had stated: “I am a Ustase. However, I disassociate myself from all other a ributes of the Ustashi.” He stated that his primary motivation was to create an independent Croatian state at any cost and by whatever means. The CIC and the Vatican were perfectly aware of his identity and his known role and complicity in the Holocaust and in the genocide in Croatia and Bosnia. Nevertheless, these factors were regarded as irrelevant so long as he was a Catholic who could be used and exploited and manipulated as an asset in the Cold War conflict against Communism and the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. Brendan Murphy wrote about the immorality of the operation: “It suggests that some highly‑placed Americans lost their moral bearings in the political maelstrom of postwar Europe.” The nature of the Ustasha NDH regime was well‑known by the Vatican and by US intelligence. The Ustasha government sought to exterminate the entire Serbian, Jewish, and Roma populations of Croatia and Bosnia‑Hercegovina. There was never any intention to deny or to hide this policy. Education Minister in the NDH regime Mile Budak announced that the policy was to kill a third, deport a third, and forcefully convert a third of the Serbian population of Croatia and Bosnia. Budak stated this policy of genocide in 1941: “Thus, our new Croatia will get rid of all Serbs in our midst in order to become one hundred per cent Catholic within ten years.” In a speech made in Zagreb, NDH Poglavnik Ante Pavelic reiterated the genocidal policy: “A good Ustase is one who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother.” http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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Draganovic was instrumental in steering Barbie to Bolivia. In Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyons, Tom Bower noted that Draganovic had persuaded Barbie to se le in Bolivia, not in Argentina, his first choice: “Draganovic knew a priest in Cochabamba and people on the way here also told me that it’s always spring in Cochabamba.” Draganovic had also noted that Bolivia was a be er location because of its known oil and natural gas reserves. The Vatican and the Rat Lines Draganovic and other high‑ranking Ustasha leaders were protected by the Vatican and Allied and Western countries from prosecution for war crimes and for genocide. The Vatican and the Allies did, however, know the role Draganovic and Barbie had played in the Holocaust and their status as wanted war criminals. The Vatican was the hub of the network that allowed suspected war criminals to escape. It was at the Vatican where Draganovic found refuge and where he set up his base of operations. Draganovic did not work alone. There was an intricate and elaborate Vatican network. Draganovic worked with Austrian Roman Catholic Bishop Alois Hudal, a proponent of clerical‑fascism who had wri en the book The Foundations of National Socialism in 1937. Hudal helped hundreds of wanted Nazi war criminals, senior Gestapo officers, and concentration camp officials escape to South America using “the Vatican route”, the “Monastery Route”, the Rat Lines. Pope Pius XII defended Ante Pavelic as “a much maligned man” and sent Papal Nuncio Marne to the NDH regime during World War II. The Vatican did not de jure recognize the NDH state but did send a delegate or emissary of the Holy See to the Zagreb Episcopaly, Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, on August 5, 1941. A Papal Nuncio was regarded as an Ambassador. Thus, the Vatican de facto recognized the Ustasha NDH state but withheld de jure recognition in order not to antagonize Great Britain and the U.S. Marcone was publicly seen and photographed with Ante Pavelic and prominent Ustasha religious and political leaders. Thus, the Vatican did, however, de facto recognize the NDH. The countries which recognized de jure, legally and diplomatically, the NDH were: Finland (July 2, 1941), Hungary (April 10, 1941); Germany, Italy and Slovakia (April 15, 1941); Bulgaria (April 21, 1941); Romania (May 6, 1941); Japan (June 7, 1941); Spain (June 27, 1941); Japanese‑occupied China (July 5, 1941); Denmark (July 10, 1941); Manchukuo (August 2, 1941); Japanese‑ occupied Burma, Japanese‑occupied Philippines, the “Free Indian” government, and, Thailand (April 27, 1943). Vichy France did not de jure recognize the NDH state but sent a trade representative, Andre Gailliard, to Zagreb. Vichy negotiated a trade agreement with the NDH on March 16, 1942, thus establishing de facto recognition. Swi erland established a trade agreement with the NDH on September 10, 1941 through trade representative Friedrich Kaestli. What prevented the Vatican from legally recognizing its puppet NDH state was the potential backlash from the Allies, particularly Great Britain and the US. That the Ustasha government was commi ing genocide and atrocities was of no or li le concern to the Vatican. After the war, the Vatican was instrumental in allowing accused German and Croatian war criminals, implicated in genocide, to escape prosecution for their crimes. A US agent in Italy, Vincent la Vista, wrote a report for the US State Department in 1947 that explained how the Vatican and the Red Cross were involved in issuing false documents and smuggling suspected Nazi, fascist, and Ustasha war criminals and the rationale: “The justification of the Vatican for its participation in this illegal traffic is simply the propagation of the Faith. It is the Vatican’s desire to assist any person regardless of nationality or political beliefs, as long as that person can prove himself to be a Catholic. The Vatican further justifies its participation by its desire to infiltrate not only European countries but Latin American countries as well with people of all political beliefs as long as they are anti‑Communist and pro‑Catholic Church.” http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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Ustasha War Crimes Suspects Draganovic used a front as the official representative of the Croatian Red Cross to smuggle suspected Ustasha and Nazi war criminals out of Italy. He made visits to the refugee camps in Italy where he was able to locate and identify former Ustasha officials and functionaries and their supporters. He was then able to issue them fake or forged identity documents that would enable them to escape to South America or to another destination. Author Stephen Clissold (1913‑1982), then a British Major, who was in the British Council and the Foreign Office Research Department, who worked as a liaison officer with the Special Refugee Commission in Rome after World War II, described Draganovic’s activities: “In the summer of 1945 Draganovic made a personal tour of the camps where ex‑members of the Ustasa armed forces and political organizations were housed, and established contact with leading Ustasa representatives … This led to the formation of a political intelligence service which enabled San Girolamo to collect reports and data on political trends among the émigrés. The territorial immunity enjoyed by San Girolamo … also provided safe asylum for the émigrés most in danger of arrest by the Allies.” In The Butcher of Lyon: The Story of Infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie, Brendan Murphy wrote that Draganovic had initially set up his operation to help Croatian Ustasha suspected war criminals to escape war crimes prosecutions in the former Yugoslavia: “Dragonovic established his Ratline to help other Croats who during World War II had been involved in the ‘Independent state of Croatia,’ a puppet nation established by Hitler and Mussolini in 1941. By exploiting the existing antipathies between Yugoslavia’s Croats and the Serbian majority, the Nazis managed to install Ante Pavelic at the head of this state, whose capital was located in Zagreb. This illegitimate government slaughtered several hundred thousand Serbs and some 30,000 Jews between 1941 and its downfall in April 1945.”
U.S. Army Counter‑Intelligence Corps (CIC) officer Erhard Dabringhaus was the Control Officer of Klaus Barbie, “The Butcher of Lyon”, who was employed as an informant by the CIC in 1948. The CIC knew that Draganovic was a wanted war criminal and his background. Erhard “Dabby” Dabringhaus from Grosse Pointe, Michigan was the Control Officer of Klaus Barbie. He was a Special Agent in the U.S. Military Intelligence Service from 1942 to 1950. In 1948, he was a member of CIC stationed in Augsburg, Germany where he worked with Barbie for almost a year. Barbie had set up an “information network” which he was to provide to U.S. intelligence if he was paid. Dabringhaus negotiated with Barbie and Kurt Merk, his associate, a former German Wehrmacht solder, whereby their information would be purchased for $1,700 per month. He met with them three times a week and gathered information which they provided which was transmi ed to headqarters. Barbie and Merk organized informants. Barbie was shielded from French intelligence agents who wanted to discuss his whereabouts with U.S. intelligence agents. Dabringhaus denied that he knew of Barbie. He told the French agents: “I ‘ve never even heard of the man.” CIC, thus, consciously and knowingly protected Barbie and prevented his arrest. He was quoted in 1983 as saying that, with a few exceptions, http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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the information Barbie supplied was worthless. He reported on an uranium mine in northern Czechoslovakia which was of value because of its use in atomic weapons. His contacts with the Soviets, however, were limited, if any. Barbie had been stationed in the Netherlands and France during the war. According to Dabringhaus, Barbie was not a member of the Gestapo, but had been a captain in the SD, Sicherheitsdienst, the Security Service or Counter‑ Intelligence, in the region in France between Lyon and Besancon. The SD was controlled by Heinrich Himmler’s Security Headquarters, the RSHA. All members of the SD were on the Automatic Arrest list as wanted war criminals by the Allies, but Barbie was never arrested. Barbie had infiltrated the maquis, the French resistance movement during the war. The CIC sought to make use of his expertise and knowledge in counter‑intelligence by employing him as an informant to infiltrate Communist and Soviet networks and to expose their agents. Barbie had worked for the CIC at least for a year before Dabringhaus was assigned to him. He recalled that the value of the information Barbie submi ed to him was negligible. Dabringhaus cited an instance of trivial information that Barbie provided to CIC: “Once he copied an article from a Yugoslavian newspaper and sold it to U.S. agents.” He testified that he “thought his information was not worth very much.” If the bulk of his information was worthless, why was he employed by CIC? Was his intelligence background and anti‑guerrilla or counter‑insurgency experience of value? Dabringhaus acknowledged that the CIC knew of Draganovic’s role during the war: “Father Draganovic was known to our 430th CIC as a fascist and a war criminal.” A German language and cultural history professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Dabringhaus was chosen because of his German language proficiency. He testified at Barbie’s war crimes trial before three judges and a jury of nine at the Palace of Justice in Lyon, France in 1987: ”I became convinced that I was working with a real war criminal.” Kurt Merk had informed him of Barbie’s role in Lyon. He informed his superior officers but they told him to disregard the information because Barbie was “a valuable agent and a good anti‑ Communist.” Dabringhaus and the CIC also knew that the Croatian NDH Ustasha regime of which Draganovic had been a part was implicated in genocide. In his account of the CIC recruitment of Barbie, he wrote: “Between 1941 and 1945, several hundred thousand Serbs were killed in Croatia; some 30,000 Jew were also brutally murdered.” The genocide commi ed against Serbs, Jews, and Roma was known by British and U.S. intelligence but did not prevent them from shielding, protecting, and employing those same perpetrators. The Croats who commi ed these atrocities and genocide fled after the war. Pavelic was helped to escape to South America with the help of Draganovic “whose escape routes were believed to still be in active use by the Croatian war criminals when the 430th contracted with the priest. The 430th obviously wished to keep its involvement with Draganovic secret.” The employment of Draganovic by the U.S. was rationalized as necessary for national security: The “430th’s use of Dragonovic was, like the 66th’s use of Barbie, a moral compromise seen as a necessary expedient.” The U.S. rationale was that the ends justified the means. That was, ironically and absurdly, a rationale that Adolf Hitler invoked as well. Allan A. Ryan, Jr., Special Assistant to the U.S. Assistant A orney General, who wrote a report on the Barbie case for the U.S. Justice Department, “suspects that in exchange for Ratline favors the CIC may also have helped Croatian war criminals escape from Europe.” In a 1948 memorandum, a CIC agent explained that “the agreement consists of simple mutual assistance, i.e., these agents assist persons of interest to Father Dragonovic to leave Germany, and, in turn, Father Dragonovic will assist these agents in obtaining the necessary visas to Argentina, South America, for persons of interest to this command.” Where did the money come from? The Ustasha leaders fled the NDH in 1945 with what was reported as truckloads of booty which they had seized and accumulated during the war. The NDH regime had seized money and property from murdered Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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Roma. The trucks represented only a small fraction of what the Ustasha regime had been able to plunder. According to William Gowen of the U.S. CIC, British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) agents had intercepted Ante Pavelic along with the booty or “treasure trucks” in May, 1945 in their occupation sector in Austria: “British Lt. Colonel Jon son was placed in charge of two (2) trucks laden with the sup posed prop erty of the Catholic Church in the British Zone of Aus tria. These two (2) trucks, accom pa nied by a num ber of priests and the British offi cer, then entered Italy and went to an unknown des ti na tion.” The SIS and the Vatican were sheltering Pavelic. Gowen maintained that British intelligence was using the money to finance “the Croat resis tance move ment in Yugoslavia. The resis tance forces . . . go by the name of Krizari (Cru saders) . . . Radio con tact is main tained by means of a field radio oper ated by [Vjekoslav] Vran cic, a for mer Pavelic min is ter located in the British Zone of Aus ‑ tria. The Ustachia courier ser vice within the Aus trian Zones is believed aided by the Roman Catholic Church in Aus tria. The Car di nal of Graz is known to be on close terms with . . . Pro ‑ fes sor Draganovic, Krunoslav, known Pavelic con tact in Rome.” Funds for the Rat Lines came from the U.S. CIC, the UK MI6, the Vatican charitable organization Assistenza Pontifica, and valuables, assets, gold, and currency seized by the Ante Pavelic NDH regime from murdered Serbs, Jews, and Roma. The key financial sponsors were thus the U.S. and British governments in collusion with the Vatican. Draganovic was heavily involved in the money laundering operation. The Ustasha minister Lovro Susic had control of 400 kilograms of gold and foreign currency notes which the Ustasha leaders had taken to Wolfsberg, Austria. Draganoic contacted Susic about safeguarding the gold. He was able to take 40 kilograms of this gold to Rome. Klaus Barbie and the Rat Lines
Wanted Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was employed by the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counter‑Intelligence Corps (CIC) from 1947 to 1951. Like the Vatican, the U.S. government had no compunction in using accused war criminals implicated in genocide to serve their agendas. The US, like the Vatican, used alleged war criminals like Draganovic and Barbie and shielded them from prosecution for war crimes and genocide. When the 66th CIC learned about this system it wanted to “export its greatest problem”, wantedwar criminal Klaus Barbie for alleged war crimes commi ed in France. On December 11, 1950, Lt. John Hobbins traveled to Salzburg to meet with the 430th staff. http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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George Neagoy of the 430th CIC in Salzburg “was responsible for supervision of the Ratline.” Neagoy was to give Barbie’s personal data to Dragonovic who would establish ID documents and travel documents. Klaus Becker became Klaus Altmann. The Italian consulate issued Barbie a travel permit for Italy after the US government made the request. Another CIC agent, Jack Gay, accompanied Neagoy. From Salzburg they took Barbie and his family to Genoa where on March 12 they gave him over to Dragonovic. Dragonovic obtained a Red Cross travel permit for Barbie. Barbie obtained a visa because Dragonovic sponsored him. Dragonovic signed the application in support of the Red Cross documents. CIC operations officer Paul E. Lyon had first found Draganovic during one of the earliest operations of the Rat Line in Trieste in 1947 and he “had proved to be enormously valuable for the American operation”. Draganovic had well‑placed contacts with displaced persons organizations which managed and organized immigration quotas to South America. South American countries sought skilled intelligence and military officers and civilian bureaucrats and administrators for their own forces. This is where Klaus Barbie fit in well. Draganovic used his information to “brief” the Rat Line team on the “skills” each South American country desired. The US CIC team would then prepare the forged documentation to match the needed “profession” or occupation. Draganovic had a set fee of $1,000 per person and half‑price for children. There was even a VIP rate of $1,400 for expedited service. The CIC set up “friendly” hotels at the ports for their clients or “shipment”: “The escort would babysit in the hotel, not le ing the shipment out of sight until the ship’s departure. Then we would walk him right up to the gangplank, turn him over to somebody aboard the ship who knew that this was a special person who had to be taken care of, and that was the end of the Rat Line.” The CIC provided their “shipment” with funds that ranged from $1,000 to $8,000. This money was for services rendered to US intelligence and to help start up a new life in their host countries. Klaus Barbie was supposed to have received $5,000 from CIC. Barbie told Bolivian officials that he only had $850 in his possession.
The U.S. military command in Europe made the decision to allow Barbie to “escape” to Bolivia. The CIC documents “disappeared” when the intelligence file was to be microfilmed in 1951. EUCOM, European command, the US military occupation authority in the US zone, the American army command in Heidelberg, Germany, which had overall command of CIC, gave the final approval on January 25, 1951. Jack Dobson, Milano’s successor, authorized Barbie’s “evacuation”. Milano and Dobson insisted that they would not have approved of “shipping” a former SS and Gestapo agent if they had known about his role in the Third Reich. This denial is not, however, very credible or plausible. Barbie was their “star asset”. George Neagoy of the CIC 430 B detachment organized the Barbie “shipment”. Barbie obtained a travel document forged by 430 CIC or “obtained under false pretenses”. Barbie was given the alias of Klaus Altmann and along with his children Ute and Klaus and his wife Regine, to board an American truck which transported them to Salzburg. It was not possible to disguise themselves as American soldiers so Barbie US handlers put him and his family on a train to Genoa. Barbie was reunited with Croatian Ustasha handler Krunoslav Draganovic in Genoa, Italy, a meeting described as “a natural homecoming for Barbie.” Before the outbreak of World War II, Draganovic had been a professor at the faculty of Roman Catholic theology in Zagreb. During the Ustasha period, he was a hard‑core Ustasha Nazi and fascist who strongly http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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endorsed the genocide against the Krajina Serbs and Croatian and Bosnian Jews. Tom Bower, in Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyons, described Draganovic’s wartime and postwar activities as follows: “During the war, he was one of the leading clerics who favoured the forced catholicization of Orthodox Serbs. With the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he became a chaplain in the concentration camps to which the Serbs were sent. For those Serbs who resisted catholicization, the Ustachi, who collaborated with the Germans, used methods of torture which even very few Germans practiced during the war. The domestic holocaust between the nationalities in Yugoslavia was a sideshow of which the world was largely ignorant but the casualties were staggering. Hundreds of thousands died at the behest of Catholic priests and, many have suspected, with the cognisance of the Vatican. At the end of the war Draganovic, like many other senior Ustachi leaders, disappeared into western Europe, protected by the ignorance of the Allies and their growing distrust of Tito’s government. Draganovic fled to the Vatican, was given sanctuary, and was then appointed to care for Croatian Ustachi imprisoned in Allied camps. While in the Vatican he met Bishop Alois Hudal, the representative of the Deutsche Nationale Kirche. Hudal, like many other clerics, had sympathized with the Nazis and other fascist governments because, in his view, only they could protect the Church against Russian communism. Following the collapse of the Third Reich, Hudal personally helped hundreds of incriminated Nazis, including senior Gestapo officials from Berlin and the officers of extermination camps, to leave Europe for South America on what has become known as ‘the Vatican route’. Draganovic obtained from him the necessary introductions, firstly to the Red Cross officials who could provide an internationally accepted passport for Europeans anxious to leave the continent for a new life, and secondly to the network of consular, port and shipping officials who, for a bribe, could smooth the fugitive’s path. In his original briefing to Milano, Lyon had described Draganovic as ‘a Fascist, war criminal, etc.’ Nevertheless, the CIC still called him ‘the good Father’.” According to Barbie’s own statements, Draganovic was waiting for the family at the Genoa railway station and had a photo Neagoy had given him of the family. He took them to a hotel by the harbor where Adolf Eichmann had once stayed before his “escape” as well as other prominent Nazis and Ustasha. George Neagoy of CIC went with the family to Genoa and stayed with them until their departure. Draganovic organized their departure. Barbie wanted to se le in Argentina and had a le er of introduction to the Argentine government. Draganovic convinced Barbie that Bolivia was a be er place because of its oil resources. Barbie stated: “Draganovic knew a priest in Cochabamba and people on the way here also told me that it’s always spring in Cochabamba.” According to Tom Bower, “there were several ma ers for Draganovic to se le.” The Corrientes was the next ship leaving Genoa but it was full to capacity. Draganovic was able to bribe a shipping clerk with a large raw ham to cancel a prior reservation. This allowed the Barbie family to find room on the ship. At the Bolivian consulate, Draganovic “arranged a cabled request to La Paz for a residence permit.” Bower noted his clout: “As a testimony to Draganovic’s influence, the approval was granted within two days.” Next Draganovic took them to the Argentine consulate at 38 Via Albaro where they were greeted with salutes of “Heil Hitler”. Draganovic took Barbie’s five‑year‑ old son Klaus into the official’s office and obtained entry visas dated March 19. Finally, Draganovic took them to the International Red Cross Commission where he had contacts who immediately issued a temporary passport for the Barbie family. Bower described the relationship between Barbie and Draganovic: “During that time Barbie established a friendly relationship with Draganovic. There were trips to nightclubs and restaurants. When Barbie asked why Draganovic was helping him, the answer was gratifying. ‘[His reasons] were purely humanitarian. He helped both Catholics and Protestants, but mostly they were SS officers, about two hundred in all. Anti‑communists. He http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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said to me, ‘We’ve got to keep a sort of reserve on which we can draw in the future.” I think that was the Vatican’s motive as well.’” On March 22, the Barbie family sailed for Buenos Aires, arriving three weeks later. They went by train to Bolivia where the family se led in June, 1951. This was how Barbie “escaped”.
Klaus Barbie’s identification card when he worked as an officer in the Bolivian government secret police. Klaus Barbie was not the only wanted war crimes suspect to escape. Adolf Eichmann, Dr. Josef Mengele, Franz Stengel, the commander of the Treblinka death camp, Andrija Artukovic, “the Himmler of the Balkans”, and Ante Pavelic, all escaped via the Rat Lines. William Gowen, a former intelligence officer in the United States Army, testified at a federal court in San Francisco in 2005, that American military intelligence had located Pavelic’s hiding place in the Vatican. (23) Based on “a secret document” that Gowen authored in July, 1947, which was submi ed to the court, Gowen’s intelligence unit was told not to apprehend Pavelic. (24) U.S. intelligence was instructed by the U.S. Embassy: “Hands off” of Ante Pavelic. Pavelic was assisted by both the Vatican and the U.S. government. (25) By way of the Rat Lines, Pavelic fled to Argentina where he served as a security adviser to president Juan Peron, whose regime issued entry visas to 34,000 Croats, many of whom were Ustashe members implicated in war crimes and genocide and Nazi supporters. Why was a war crimes suspect implicated in the genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma allowed to escape prosecution? Burn Notice Draganovic was employed by the US Army to successfully evacuate Klaus Barbie from Europe. In 1959, US Army intelligence reestablished their relationship with Father Krunoslav Draganovic. In an operation code named Dynamo and Fabiano, he was recruited by U.S. intelligence in operations against Yugoslavia. Draganovic became a target of US intelligence and an asset for the US Army CIC. By 1962, however, he was no longer of any value to U.S. intelligence and was je isoned. A burn notice is issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When spies are burned, their connection to an espionage organization is terminated, leaving them without access to cash or influence. In Draganovic’s “burn notice”, a Confidential Memorandum for the commanding officer, Department of Army Detachment APO 757 US Forces, of January 23, 1962, the reasons given for his dismissal were: “SECUIRITY & LACK OF CONTROL”: “Not amenable to control; too knowledgeable of unit personnel and activity; demands outrageous monetary tribute and U.S. support of Croat organizations as partial payment for cooperation.” He had been described as “very venal” and “one who places his country above the church” in an earlier CIC report. Conclusion Over 77,000 of the 350,000 Jews who lived in France died during the Holocaust. Deportations to the Auschwi concentration camp from France took place until August, 1944. Over thirty percent of those deported were French citizens. Over 8,000 Jewish children from France http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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under the age of thirteen died during the Holocaust. More than seventy‑five percent of French Jews survived the Holocaust. This was due in part to protection and help from French citizens, French political leaders, and the French resistance. The extent and scope of French protection and resistance, however, continued to be debated in post‑World War II France. A major war criminal implicated in the Holocaust in France, Klaus, Barbie, was helped to escape prosecution for war crimes and genocide by the U.S. government. Barbie had been an asset or agent recruited by U.S. intelligence after the war. The U.S. used Croat Ustasha Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic to orchestrate Barbie’s escape to South America by means of the Rat Lines established at the Vatican. The U.S. allowed known wanted suspects accused of war crimes and genocide to elude justice and prosecution. The reationale was that it was necessary to safeguard U.S. national interests during the Cold War. Bibliography Aarons, Mark, and John Loftus. Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks. New and Revised Edition With Recently Declassified Information. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Adler, Jacques. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940‑1944. NY: Oxford University Press, 1985. Bower, Tom. Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyons. NY: Pantheon Books, 1984. Campbell, Charles. “Ex‑official Says U.S. Employed Barbie Even After Learning of Nazi Past.” Associated Press, May 14, 1987. Dabringhaus, Erhard. Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story of How the U.S. Used this Nazi War Criminal as an Intelligence Agent: A First Hand Account. Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, Inc, 1984. Dorril, Stephen. MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. New York: The Free Press, 2000, Gutman, Israel, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. 4 Volumes. NY: Macmillan, 1990. Hirschfeld, Gerhard, and Patrick Marsh, eds. Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation, 1940‑1944. Oxford: Berg, 1989. Hoffmann, Stanley. Essais sur la France. Déclin ou renouveau?. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1974. —Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. Directed by Marcel Ophuls. VHS.1989. Culver City, CA: Columbia, 1995. Pryce‑Jones, David. Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940‑1944. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981. Kedward, Harry R. Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance, 1940‑ 1944. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. Kitson, Simon. The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Klarsfeld, Serge. The Children of Izieu: A Human Tragedy. NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1984. Linklater, Magnus, Isabel Hilton and Neal Ascherson. The Nazi Legacy: Klaus Barbie and the International Fascist Connection. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984. http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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Marrus, Michael R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. NY: Basic Books, Inc., 1981. Melman, Yossi. “Tied Up in the Rat Lines.” Haare .com, January 15, 2006. Murphy, Brendan. The Butcher of Lyon: The Story of Infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie. NY: Empire Books, 1983. Ousby, Ian. Occupation. The Ordeal of France, 1940‑1944. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. —“Prof Says ‘Nazi Butcher’ Was Paid U.S. Informant.” Associated Press, February 5, 1983. Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order. NY: Columbia University Press, 1982. Ryan, Allan A., Jr. Klaus Barbie and the United States Government: A Report to the A orney General of the United States. Park Forest, IL: University Press of the Pacific, 2003. Sayer, Ian and Douglas Bo ing. America’s Secret Army: The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps. New York: Franklin Wa s, 1989. Wright, Gordon. France in Modern Times. From the Enlightenment to the Prersent. 5th Edition. NY: W.W. Norton, 1995. Footnotes 1. Hirschfeld, Collaboration in France, p. 14. 2. Ibid., p. 14. 3. Jones, p. 17. 4. Ibid., p. 18. 5. Ibid., p. 19. 6. Ibid., p. 19. 7. Ibid., p. 20. 8. Ibid., p. 21. 9. Ibid., p. 21. 10. Ibid., p. 21. 11. Ibid., p. 23. 12. Ibid., p. 23. 13. Ibid., p. 23. 14. Klarsfeld, The Children of Izieu, p. 10. 15. Ibid., p. 11. 15. Ibid., p. 11. 17. Ibid., p. 12. 18. Ibid., p. 12. 19. Jones, p. 27. http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/1570
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20. Ibid, p. 31. 21. Murphy, The Butcher of Lyon, p. 39. 22. Kitson, The Hunt for Nazi Spies, 2008. 23. Melman, “Tied Up in the Rat Lines”, 2006. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. Tags: Carl Savich
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